in conjunction with jcase and cpod (both of droid eris and general android hacking fame), I've got the debug password. adb shell results in a root shell without "rooting" using robots method. From there its extremely easy to produce a more conventional android root.

[video=youtube;6a4YHwSrPdg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a4YHwSrPdg[/video]

Thanks go out to Robot for the initial root, and paving the way for the community!